Customer Reviews

Henry in Love

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Henry is a young boy cat. He begins his school day like every other school day but today, Henry's mother bakes blueberry muffins, muffins that truly are blue. She gives a muffin to Henry, his brother and a friend (a dog) to take to school. After playing football with the rabbit football player, Henry sees Chloe, a girl he likes in school. How can a young boy tell a girl he likes her? What is love?

HENRY IN LOVE tells a sweet, charming story of love and friendship from a boy's point of view. The children characters are diverse --- cats, dogs, rabbits and other animals and the events follow his day at school. One boy even asks him if he is going to talk to a girl as kids of that age often do. Henry is a confident young boy, acting from his heart. Without a lot of fanfare, he reaches out to Chloe. In one simple gesture of generosity, Henry expresses his feelings. The last scene evokes a sense of sweetness and humor. The illustrations accompanying the words also tell the story from the boy's perspective from the arrangement of his room and his morning urination (from the back with no explicit details) to the school games. Like Henry's personality, the illustrations have a directness, sweetness and wonderful simplicity that focuses on the key essentials.

HENRY IN LOVE is a wonderful story of friendship that would appeal to both boy and girl readers. Without a lot of unnecessary romantic grand gestures, Henry expresses his feelings for Chloe directly and effectively. HENRY IN LOVE would make a wonderful Valentine's story for young children. If you are looking for a Valentine's story for a young boy, HENRY IN LOVE is one of the few that tells the story of love through a boy's perspective.

Sometimes, children's books make great gifts for adults as well. I read this book to my husband. After the first few lines, he came over to listen more carefully and look at the illustrations. The ending put quite a smile on his face. After seeing his reaction, I would also recommend HENRY IN LOVE as a wonderful Valentine's or birthday gift for that special, sweet man in your life. Few books can say so well just how special a no-nonsense courageous boy can be whether he be a young boy or an adult with a young boy's imagination still inside.

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

Initially, I picked out Henry In Love because I have a 3 year old named Henry. This sweet, simple story with it's really cute pictures stood out as a winner not only to my Henry, but to his 4 sisters as well. We all adored the drawings of the animal children, but my Henry especially liked the kitten Henry waking up in the morning and 'using the toilet'. He also loved that a big-kid bunny who was a football player actually thru a toss to the littler kids. From doing a forward roll to try to impress a pretty bunny named Chloe, to trying to catch her at tag, and finally giving her his huge, blue, blueberry muffin...Henry makes it so easy for us to like him. Did I also mention the drawings are super cute!

Henry wakes up to have breakfast, only to find out that he has a treat for school: a blueberry muffin. He walks to school and plays football on the way, with the brother of the "loveliest girl" in his class: Chloe. Henry saves his muffin for afternoon snack. Henry and Chloe trade gymnastic tricks and play chase at recess. When his teacher announces a new set of seating arrangements, Henry and Chloe wind up next to each other. They trade snack: a blueberry muffin for a carrot. Henry felt like this was love. Children ages 4 to 7 will adore the simple text and illustrations in this book.

Henry the cat goes off to school one day, with his backpack holding a blueberry muffin baked by his mother. Once there, he falls in crush with a lovely bunny who sits in the back row. "Are you looking at me?" Chloe asks, beginning a gentle back-and-forth between the two. At recess, Henry shows off with a forward roll, and Chloe "turned a perfect cartwheel. Henry was impressed." Their relationship escalates to tag, and finally, with Henry's ultimate expression of affection - he gives Chloe the muffin he had been saving for snack. Delicately written and drawn (in pen and colored ink), sweet but not twee, HENRY IN LOVE perfectly renders elementary school love and is my newest favorite picture book read for Valentine's Day.

This is such a sweet story about a little boy cat in love with a girl rabbit in his class. Very sweet story and illustrations. My two year old wanted me to read it over and over for six months straight. Now my 4 1/2 year old has discovered it.

I bought this for a friend's son whose name is Henry. This is such a cute book. Cute little artwork and storyline. Adorable book.

Such an adorable book. I bought this book around Valentines day. I read it to my three boys. A perfect book for all ages. It appealed to my 3 year old, all the way up to me. I become fonder of the book each time I read it. The illustrations are so sweet. Sums up the simplicity we all need in our lives.

Henry, the cat of few (actually no) words, has a huge crush on Chloe, a flirtatious little bunny in his class at school.
Gentle and true to life, this story was my three-year-old son's absolute favorite for about three months. We read it every single night. He wanted to point out all the characters that he knew, then he named all the other kids in Henry's class, he cracked up every time I'd say the line, '"Are you looking at me?' asked Chloe." After his obsession with the book died down a bit, my 18-month-old daughter went crazy for it. Cue "Henry in Love" at bedtime every night for another three months. She loved it, paradoxically, because of Chloe's friend Abby the chicken. It's just a really sweet book that kids can somehow relate to.

Henry was still half asleep snuggled in his bed, but when he smelled blueberry muffins baking he was ready to get up. He went to the bathroom and dressed up in his baseball outfit with the number two on the jersey. Henry and his brother Tim ate their breakfast while their mother put those scrumptious muffins in their lunch bags. Mmmmmm! Even Henry's friend, Sancho, asked for one when he came to the house. Before they ended up at school, they played a bit of football with one of the big high school boys. He told Henry that he was "pretty fast" and also mentioned he had a sister, Chloe. She was in Henry's class and well, he kind of liked her.

When he turned to look at her in class she spouted out, "Are you looking at me?" Boys aren't supposed to look at girls and when he wanted to walk up to Chloe on the playground Sancho scolded him saying, "You're not going to talk to a GIRL, are you?" Well, what's a guy to do. They all showed off on the playground and Chloe did a cartwheel that impressed Henry big time. In the afternoon Mrs. Devine had everyone change seats. Henry was now going to sit next to Chloe. It was snack time and Chloe wanted to know what he brought. He had that blueberry muffin left over from lunch time. Mmmmmm!

This was a charming story of a young boy's first love that will delight the reader. Every parent who reads this will smile, remembering their first childhood love with fondness. Children who listen to this story might give out a "yuk" or two, but might secretly love someone in their class. The artwork was whimsical and meshed perfectly with the story. The combination caught the "love" perfectly and it can be seen in the positioning of the characters and the slight change of expression on their faces when they are near each other. If you have a young Henry or Chloe in your house, I think you might want to consider adding this timeless tale to your list!

Now when I was a little kid I was single-mindedly determined to pair off the world. If I could continually put together two people and marry them off, that was all I wanted out of life. Name the television show and I could tell you how I wanted folks to hook up. Now I'm grown up and I see a couple romantically-oriented picture books each season and sometimes they get this complaint from parents and reviewers: Is this really for kids? Tales of romantic love for small kids are sometimes considered ridiculous. From my own experiences as a child, I think they're perfectly ideal fro that age, though I admit that not everyone agrees with me. Fortunately, I don't think that this particular complaint will ever be lobbed against Peter McCarty's newest book "Henry in Love". True, it's about a boy with a crush on a girl, but it's a very realistic crush. The little boys and little girls in this book act just like your average little boys and little girls (albeit in cat and rabbit form). It's not exactly full of action sequences, moments of pain and anguish, or containing much of any conflict whatsoever. It is instead a story that is realistic and adorable. And admit it . . . isn't there a little room in this world for one more of those?

On this particular day Henry, his brother, and his friend Sancho get one blueberry muffin apiece from Henry's mom and start off for school. On the way they play a little football with a nice high schooler that has a sister in Henry's class. Her name is Chloe and Henry, "thought she was the loveliest girl in his class." During recess he and Chloe show off for one another. Afterwards, their teacher rearranges everyone's seats and Henry ends up sitting next to Chloe. And when she asks what he brought for snack time, he reveals the big, beautiful, very blue blueberry muffin and offers it to her. "Chloe ate the blueberry muffin. Henry had a carrot." And looked very pleased with himself too.

I'll tell you right here and now that kids that thrive on conflict and resolution won't dig this particular story. Sum this book up in one word and the result is: "gentle". Soft and sweet as can be. Henry doesn't spend this book fretting that Chloe (who I secretly believe is modeled on McCarty's own daughter, though I've no hard and fast proof of this) doesn't like him. He doesn't get humiliated by the other boys at school, or have to overcoming some big problem. This is just a single day in a boy's life, and even then it seems to end around 2:00 p.m. Kids act like kids and it's not that they're all little angels or anything. They just don't happen to have anything particularly nasty going on in their brains this particular day.

It's fun to watch how McCarty's style has changed somewhat over the years. In books like "Hondo and Fabian" or "Little Bunny on the Move" the characters have an ethereal quality that lets them practically glow from the pages. That look has been exchanged for a new one that I like especially here. In terms of these critters, McCarty uses a distinctive pen and ink style to give his animals a fuzzy, petable quality. The clothed bodies, however, are practically rudimentary outlines. Your eyes are naturally drawn to the faces first, the bodies second. Then there is his accomplished ability to give the impression of fuzziness. Looking at these drawings, I've been trying to figure out how McCarty gives the impression of fur without overdoing it. How does he use the same drawing technique on the muffins as he does on the faces, yet come up with pictures where the muffins look crumbly and the faces look furry? It must have something to do with how he designs the lines around the faces. The color emanates out of the centers, and for some reason that makes one animal or another look fuzzed. For a man who draws in Sennelier shellac-based colored inks and Winsor and Newton watercolors, there are some mad skills going on here.

I'm fond of the layouts of the pages as well. The book is essentially a sea of white that is so perfectly filled that it distracts you from viewing this as some picture book GAP ad. At one point Henry turns around to look at Chloe in the back of the room. What follows is a two-page spread. Chloe's desk sits in a field, surrounded only by grass, deep red poppies, and small purple blossoms that match her dress. That scene doesn't draw particular attention to itself, but if you're paying attention you might notice that it repeats itself at the end of the book when Henry finds his desk next to Chloe's. She munches contentedly on his blueberry muffin and he sits happily, her carrot untouched before him as the grass and the flowers and the blossoms all sway. Note too that the words say that Chloe ate her muffin while Henry "had" a carrot. He doesn't take so much as a nibble out of it, but that's not really the point.

I have heard an objection to this book. Yup. Just one. And it wasn't about the obvious picture. This story has a very tasteful shot of Henry back as he uses the bathroom, not showing anything in particular but being very clear that this is one of those rare picture book urination sequences. But that's not what the person complained of (and, indeed, it would be hard to find fault with it anyway). No, someone kvetched to me about the blueberry muffin. Said they, "It's blue? Blueberry muffins aren't blue! Now kids are going to assume that unless a muffin is blue it's not a blueberry muffin!" Meh. Can't say as I agree myself. Worse comes to worse, a person can always slip some blue food coloring into their muffin batter if their kids want muffins just like Henry's.

With its simple story and beautiful art, I like this new era of Peter McCarty books. His old stories were lovely, but recently his style and stories have changed too. If I were cynical I'd say he was becoming more mainstream, but while "Henry in Love" might be many things, normal it is not. This is the loosest possible story. If there is a conflict and a solution, they're on such a low burn as to be almost entirely invisible. The book might pair very beautifully with "Bloom! A Little Book About Finding Love" by Maria van Lieshout which is, admittedly, of a more romantic inclination. McCarty's book is simply a story about a boy with a crush who gets to know and impress the girl he likes. One of the oldest stories in the world. One of the sweetest picture books of the year.

Ages 4-8.